Airlines are making contingency plans as the United States threatens a potential strike on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Several long-haul airlines fly through or close to Syrian air space, and are looking at potentially re-routing flights away from the area should military action on the country occur. This could also affect the wider flight network as many of these flights go through Syrian airspace on route to major European hubs such as Heathrow.

John Strickland, an aviation analyst at JLS Consulting, said passengers should expect disruptions to travel plans if a conflict breaks out.

“We shouldn’t magnify it out of proportion but what we have seen from other wars or military actions in the Gulf is flight routings may need to change,” said Mr Strickland.

“That can disrupt schedules of course because if you’re having to follow more secure routings you’re not able to run to your normal schedule and that directly feeds through to airlines having to burn more fuel.”

Emirates president, Tim Clark, said that they are looking at contingency plans but operations will continue “as normal” unless there is a serious deterioration in the situation, reports The Sunday Telegraph.

“We are always in a state of preparedness for anything like this and the operations group of the company will have all of this on watch; contingency plans will be in place should anything happen,” he added.

British Airways would also be affected on some of its routes if the country and surrounding airspace becomes a no-fly zone.

“We are keeping our operations under review and we would make any changes that would be necessary,” a spokesperson for BA said.